


A Good Day's Work

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Character Study, Community: 52fandoms, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 14:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Tracy thinks about his job. In the intervals of doing his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Day's Work

It's a lonely job. It takes it out of you, long weeks of unceasing vigilance, alone in orbit. _Like a tea-tray in the sky_. Always, even in sleep, an ear to the gabble of messages collected by the huge bank of kit that is the radio. It's becoming more and more sophisticated, with every upgrade they bring up from Tracy Island, it's learning to listen for words like _help_ , _danger_ , _emergency_ ; it's begun to prioritise sounds of higher frequency, to recognise the rising pitch of panic, but it's nowhere near perfect yet. It still needs that human ear, that human mind, to sift through that massive volume of communication and find that one that needs help _now_.

More than that: _they_ need the human voice. The victims, the casualties, the _humans_ , all those thousands of miles beneath him, they need to hear him, the calm, reassuring authority carried across nothingness saying, _Don't worry. Help is on its way_. He knows they need it. But still...

It's a frustrating job. He knows that he has saved as many lives, listening from his remote outpost, as his brothers have by scrabbling in the earth or plunging to the depths of the ocean. He knows, but it is hard to accept, sometimes. He is the first to hear the terror, and he would like to stretch out not just a word but a hand, to comfort if not to help.

But the Earth is twenty thousand miles away, her blue-white serenity belying the dangers facing her inhabitants now, this very moment. Whatever they are. He listens. The radio crackles. _Help! Can anybody hear me?_ The shrill fear is transmitted clear across the vacuum. He finds the frequency. “Yes. This is International Rescue. I can hear you. Stay calm and we will get help to you...”

He will do what needs doing. It is enough.


End file.
